The OpenGL Pipeline Newsletter -
Volume 003

ARB Next Gen TSG Update

As noted in the previous edition of OpenGL Pipeline, the OpenGL ARB Working Group has divided up the work for defining the API and feature sets for upcoming versions of OpenGL into two technical sub-groups (TSGs): the “Object Model” TSG and the “Next Gen” TSG. While the Object Model group has the charter to redefine existing OpenGL functionality in terms of the new object model (also described in more detail in the last edition), the Next Gen TSG is responsible for developing the OpenGL APIs for a set of hardware features new to modern GPUs.

The Next Gen TSG began meeting weekly in late November and has begun defining this new feature set, code-named “OpenGL Mount Evans.” Several of the features introduced in OpenGL Mount Evans will represent simple extensions to existing functionality such as new texture and render formats, and additions to the OpenGL Shading Language. Other features, however, represent significant new functionality, such as new programmable stages of the traditional OpenGL pipeline and the ability to capture output from the pipeline prior to primitive assembly and rasterization of fragments.

The following section provides a brief summary of the features currently being developed by the Next Gen TSG for inclusion in OpenGL Mount Evans:

Geometry Shading is a powerful, newly added, programmable stage of the OpenGL pipeline that takes place after vertex shading but prior to rasterization. Geometry shaders, which are defined using essentially the same GLSL as vertex and pixel shaders, operate on post-transformed vertices and have access to information about the current primitive, as well as neighboring vertices. In addition, since geometry shaders can generate new vertices and primitives, they can be used to implement higher-order surfaces and other computational techniques that can benefit from this type of “one-input, many-output” processing model.

Instanced Rendering provides a mechanism for the application to efficiently render the same set of vertices multiple times but still differentiate each “instance” of rendering with a unique identifier. The vertex shader can read the instance identifier and perform vertex transformations correlated to this particular instance. Typically, this identifier is used to calculate a “per-instance” model-view transformation.

Integer Pipeline Support has been added to allow full-range integers to flow through the OpenGL pipeline without clamping operations and normalization steps that are based on historical assumptions of normalized floating-point data. New non-normalized integer pixel formats for renderbuffers and textures have also been added, and the GLSL has gained some “integer-aware” operators and built-in functions to allow the shaders to manipulate integer data.

Texture “Lookup Table” Samplers are specialized types of texture samplers that allow a shader to perform index-based, non-filtered lookups into very large one-dimensional arrays of data, considerably larger than the maximum supportable 1D texture.

New Uses for Buffer Objects have been defined to allow the application to use buffer objects to store shader uniforms, textures, and the output from vertex and geometry shaders. Storing uniforms in buffer objects allows for efficient switching between different sets of uniforms without repeatedly sending the changed state from the client to the server. Storing textures in a buffer object, when combined with “lookup table” samplers, provides a very efficient means of sampling large data arrays in a shader. Finally, capturing the output from the vertex or geometry shader in a buffer object offers an incredibly powerful mechanism for processing data with the GPU’s programmable execution units without the overhead and complications of rasterization.

Texture Arrays offer an efficient means of texturing from- and rendering to a collection of image buffers, without incurring large amounts of state-changing overhead to select a particular image from that collection.

While the Next Gen TSG has designated the above items as “must have” features for OpenGL Mount Evans, the following list summarizes features that the group has classified as “nice to have”:

New Pixel and Texture Formats have been defined to support sRGB color space, shared-exponent and packed floating point, one and two component compression formats, and floating-point depth buffers.

Improved Blending Support for DrawBuffers would allow the application to specify separate blending state and color write masks for each draw buffer.

Performance Improvements for glMapBuffer allow the application to more efficiently control the synchronization between OpenGL and the application when mapping buffer objects for access by the host CPU.

The Next Gen TSG has begun work in earnest developing the specifications for the features listed above, and the group has received a tremendous head start with a much-appreciated initial set of extension proposals from NVIDIA. As mentioned, the Next Gen TSG is developing the OpenGL Mount Evans features to fit into the new object model introduced by OpenGL Longs Peak. Because of these dependencies, the Next Gen TSG has the tentative goal of finishing the Mount Evans feature set specification about 2-3 months after the Object Model TSG completes its work defining Longs Peak.

Please check back in the next edition of "OpenGL Pipeline" for another status update on the work being done in the Next Gen TSG.